When my son was born I nursed him without any troubles but when he was five weeks old he started to spit up a lot of what he ate and soon that turned into what we mom’s affectionately call ‘projectile vomitting’.  Then he stopped wetting his diaper and that sent us running to the doctors.

It turned out that his bottom stomach muscle was growing into itself instead of larger and it had literally closed off his tummy from the rest of his digestive system.  He had to have surgery immediately.

The hospital brought a breast pump to me in the waiting room so that I could get some breast milk ready for recovery.  It was slow going.  My baby’s low consumption over several days had already started to signal my body to slow down - and even though I used the breast pump faithfully, I had a hard time getting any milk.

We had to rent a pump to take home with us.  That was a pain in the hiney and quite expensive. 

Now I understand it’s quite common to buy a breast pump for a new mommy.  You can find a variety of Electric Breast Pumps at Breast Pumps Direct. I guess that they are indespensible for a mom who works outside of the home or wants to go away for a half day or overnight.

Do you have your own breast pump?  They have a guide to choosing a breast pump if you’re interested in taking a look.

This isn’t news, but I came across another article talking about the analgesic effect of breastfeeding .

For one, it irks me that newborn babies are given the PKU heel stick before they leave the hospital, when the hospital staff is well aware of the fact that the results are completely invalid until the baby has been on protein for 24-48 hours. In other words, if you’re breastfeeding, that would be at around 5 days postpartum (since it generally takes about 3 days for the milk supply to increase from colostrum to mature milk).

Typically, your Pediatrician will do the test again when baby is about a week old. My question, one that should be painfully obvious is: Why do the PKU test on the baby twice, unnecessarily?

From what I’ve read, this isn’t practiced in the UK, where the baby is only pricked at 8 days old… once.

sigh.

At least, if the hospital won’t release you without your baby suffering a needless and painful procedure (another reason to consider homebirth!) , you can present them with information that shows that you can help your baby feel less pain by nursing him during it.

Carrie